To the Victoria Falls - Discovery of the Upper Zambezi Discovery of the Upper Zambezi Discovery of the Victoria Falls Discovery of Lake Ngami Livingstone had met a wealthy English hunter and explorer, William Cotton Oswell and as early as 1847 he suggested they go in search of Sechele's mysterious lake. Oswell had earned his reputation, and money, in India as a renowned elephant hunter and ivory trader, and was now looking for new hunting fields. Livingstone was looking to establish another mission station in the region. In June 1849 Oswell, Livingstone and another Scotsman, Mungo Murray, set off acorss the trackless Kalahari Desert, ‘the great thirstland’, which at that time was believed to stretch as far as the Sahara, in search of the unknown 'great lake'. They were supported by an accompanying group of Bakwena, who acted as guides, passing through what is now Lephepe and Serowe, then northwest to Letlhakane and the Botete River. Five months later, after crossing three hundred miles of desert and nearly dying from lack of water, they became the first Europeans to discover Lake Ngami.

Livingstone received a Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society for his discovery, although Ngami, which is fed by rivers debouching from the Okavango Delta, was already known to European traders and hunters, not to mention the Batawana people who lived on its shores. Livingstone describing it as a "shimmering lake, some 80 miles [130 km] long and 20 wide". During the 19th century it was a substantial waterbody, and it took them several days to circumnavigate its perimeter. It is one of the fragmented remnants of the ancient Lake Makgadikgadi which once was fed by the Upper Zambezi and covered a huge area of modern-day Botswana. Beyond Ngami, Livingstone was told, in the land of the Makololo, were mightier waterways. Oswell, as the expedition organiser and financial backer, was awarded the medal of the Paris Geographical Society for the discovery. When, in later years, his more famous companion began to receive total credit for their joint exploits, Oswell accepted the fact philosophically.

Lake Ngami Discovered by Oswell, Murray & Livingstone (from Livingstone's Missionary Travels) A year after his first visit, however, Livingstone returned to Lake Ngami, determined to continue to the Makololo country to the north. Mary refused to be left behind, and their children, Robert, Agnes and Thomas, aged (respectively) four, three and one years old, travelled with them. Mary was also pregnant again. He would pass off the hardships it entailed. "Wagon-travelling in Africa is a prolonged system of picnicking... Excellent for the health and agreeable to those who are not over fastidious about trifles, and who delight in the open air". It took them four months and 10 days and nearly ended in disater. "In some parts we had to travel both day and night continuously for want of water, and then tie up the oxen to prevent them running away ’till we had dug wells. I lost four in pitfalls made for game, two from drought, one by a lion..." When they reached the mature woodland of the Boteti River and then the shores of Ngami, the atmosphere became almost festive as the children splashed in the shallows.

However two of the children, Agnes and Thomas, went down with malaria, and soon all his men were sick. The mosquito was not yet suspected as the vector for malaria, with Livingstone recording he "could not touch a square half inch of the bodies of the children unbitten after a single night’s exposure." Using a mixture of jalap resin, calomel, rhubarb and quinine – a remedy he hit on by trial and error he cured them. His medicinal remedy became know as the 'Livingstone Pill' or 'Livingstone's Rousers', and was manufactured in tabloid form by the firm of Burroughs Wellcome until the 1920s. A remedy composed of from six to eight grains of resin of jalap, the same of rhubarb, and three each of calomel and quinine, made up into four pills, with tincture of cardamoms, usually relieved all the symptoms in five or six hours. Four pills are a full dose for a man -- one will suffice for a woman. They received from our men the name of 'rousers', from their efficacy in rousing up even those most prostrated.

When their operation is delayed, a dessert-spoonful of Epsom salts should be given. Quinine after or during the operation of the pills, in large doses every two or three hours, until deafness or cinchonism ensued, completed the cure. The only cases in which, we found ourselves completely helpless, were those in which obstinate vomiting ensued. The constant outbreaks of feaver caused Livingstone to abandon the journey and return with his family to Kolobeng. Their forth child, Elizabeth, was born almost as soon as they were home. Mary suffered a stroke shorly after giving birth, and her new daughter caught pneumonia. Mary recovered, but her baby died. Lake Ngami has changed dramatically since Livingstone and Oswell discovered it just over 150 years ago. The Thaoge river flowed into the north-west corner of the delta and was the main inflow to the lake in the 19th century. This source of water dried up between the 1870s and 1898, and now the lake recieves water only in flood years, fed by the Nghabe and Kunyere rivers flowing into the north-east edge of the lake.

The Kunyere is the more reliable source of water. Maximum levels were recorded in 1898, 1899, 1904, 1925, 1926, 1968/69 and 1978/79. Since the 1980s it has been dry most of the time, with low water levels in the whole Okavango system during the 1990s. During the late 1990s, there was a significant change in the distribution of water in the Okavango Delta with more water flowing down the western side (towards Lake Ngami, via the Kunyere). However the history of low flow meant that it was only in 2000 that the Kunyere floodwaters reached the lake. In 2001, a few square kilometres of the lake bed was flooded and with the higher flood levels experienced subsequently, the lake has flooded substantially every year since 2004. It has become an important habitat for birds and wildlife.

Discovery of the Upper Zambezi It was not until 1851 that the course of the Upper Zambezi became known to the western world. On 3 August 1851 Livingstone, with his wife (who was again pregnant) in tow and again travelling with Oswell, reached the river at Old Sesheke, now Mwandi (in modern day Zambia). Their fifth child, 'named Oswell after their benefactor, was born on the banks of the Boteti River, but not before the entire party had almost perished in the barren Mababe Depression, now part of Chobe National Park. It was only the superior sense of the oxen that had saved them. As the dehydrated children cried and weakened, the oxen were turned loose and had happened to sniff out a trickle of foul-smelling water slimy with rhino dung.' [Davidson, Travel Africa Magazine] Travelling from the south up the Savuti Channel, they meet the Makololo people under Chief Sebetwane who had recently established control over the area of the Linyanti River. When they reached Sebetwane’s capital, named after the river, the party was given a tumultuous welcome.

Within weeks, however, the old chief died, reportedly from pneumonia. Portuguese influence had extended this far into the heart of Africa, and Livingstone found the Makololo wearing cotton traded from Angola to the west by way of intermediate native traders, the Mambari. The Mambari were also notorious slave traders, and the Makololo, Livingstone soon discovered, were selling subjected tribes to the Mambari. To the north at Sesheke Livingstone and Oswell were amazed to find a river which was nearly half a kilometre wide with huge floodplains. They had discovered the Chobe, and Livingstone rightly concluded it to be a main feeder of the Zambezi. Although Livingstone quickly realised the identity of the newly discovered river as the Upper Zambezi, his claims were disputed by geographers at the time. Cooley's map of 1852 even shows two rivers, the upper Zambezi and Livingstone's "new" river, the two being separated by a continuous mountain chain, others claiming that Livingstone's river had "no connection with the Zambezi but flowed under the Kalahari desert and became lost".

His aim was to start a mission station in this area, but he could not find a district which was sufficiently free from fever, and they returned to Sebetwane's capital at Linyanti. Sebetwane had died, Livingstone records from pneumonia aggravated by an old wound. Clay (193) recrods: The Makololo version however, is a little different. This is to the effect that one day, Sebituane insisted on riding Livingstone’s horse, in spite of warnings from the missionary that the animal was not fully broken in; Sebituane insisted that he was a very good rider and so Livingstone acceded. Unfortunately, Sebituane was thrown. He was carried to his hut in great pain and died two or three days after Livingstone left. Livingstone does not mention this incident but it is significant that the symptoms as described by him could have been caused by such an accident; no blame appear to have been attached to Livingstone. It was whilst here that they were told of a great waterfall which lay some distance downstream. However they made no attempt to reach it, and after a brief stay, retraced their steps southwards to Kuruman.

Oswell marked the position of the unknown waterfall on a manuscript map which he made at the time, but which was not published for almost 50 years, when his eldest son, W E Oswell published an account of his life (Oswell 1900). It appears that Oswell and Livingstone did not see the spray from the Falls themselves, but he recorded "Waterfall, spray seen 10 miles off" on his map, using information from local people. An interesting result of their expedition is that the Falls are marked, in nearly their correct position relative to the Upper Zambezi, on a map published by W D Cooley in 1852 - three years before Livingstone actually saw them for the first time. In 1907 Major General R S S Baden Powell wrote: "The Falls were first made known by my relative, W C Oswell, who after being the first Englishman to visit Lake Ngami out in the Kalahari Desert, made his way to the Zambezi River and mapped the country up there, including Barotseland, in 1851.

He shows the Falls on his map with the remark that their spray is visable ten mile distant, and he called them by their native name, 'Mosi-Oa-Tunya', meaning 'Smoke that roars' in th elanguage of the Makololo. Dr Livingstone visited and described them three years later and named them the Victoria Falls." It is not commonly realised that there are other candidates for the honour of being the first European to discover the Upper Zambezi. A Portuguese trader in slaves and ivory, Silva Antonia Francisco Porto, travelled east from Angola and entered Barotse country in 1848. It seems probable that he reached the river, but he was unaware of its connection to the lower Zambezi, and when Livingstone met him in 1853 he apparently satisfied himself that Porto's knowledge of the Falls certainly did not predate his. Livingstone's habits of keeping detailed journals and publishing and publicising his discoveries have ensured his reputation as the first European to explore much of the southern African interior, dispelling much of the myth of the 'Dark Continent'. Other Europeans, including the Hungarian Laszlo Magyar and the Portuguese Candido also explored the region.

Magyar travelled in the region of the watershed between the Congo and the Zambezi between 1852-4. After discovering the upper Zambezi with Oswell in 1851 Livingstone returned to Cape Town and in 1852 he retraced he steps to the Zambezi, his wife and family having returned to England. But even Livingstone doubted his own actions. "Am I on the way to die in Sebetwane’s country?" he recorded. "Have I seen the last of my wife and children? My soul, wither wilt thou emigrate? Where will thou lodge the first night after leaving the body?" Victoria Falls, the safari hub into Zimbabwe, Botswana and Zambia Home / Countries / Zimbabwe / Victoria Falls Victoria Falls – southern Africa’s safari hub We’ll show you THE best ways to experience Victoria Falls… whether that’s for the safari of a lifetime, accommodation or activities in here and beyond! Victoria Falls is a World Heritage Site. This awesome waterfall marks a milestone in the Zambezi River and a wide variety of safari options in the area, this is Southern Africa’s primary safari hub. We use Victoria Falls as our focal point for creating exceptional journeys.

With us you could canoe the Zambezi River, walk the Luangwa Valley or explore the Okavango Delta, amongst many other safari experiences. At Victoria Falls the Zambezi River is a World Heritage Site, Africa’s Adventure Capital and southern Africa’s most important hub for wildlife safaris into Hwange, Mana Pools, the lower Zambezi; the Okavango, Chobe, Kalahari, Kafue and Luangwa valley, Etosha and Namib Desert. An easy hop from Johannesburg. One of Africa’s top travel icons, Victoria Falls is an awe inspiring sight on the Zambezi River. Known for centuries by local tribes as the “the smoke that thunders” the explorer and missionary David Livingstone struck the first European expressions of delight with his quotation: “scenes so lovely must had been gazed upon by angels in their flight”. Superlatives aside. The Victoria Falls World Heritage Site has the largest curtain of falling water on the planet with plumes of spray rising 800m and visible from 50km away when in full spate.

The small town is a magnet for adrenaline junkies after extreme rafting, bungee jumping and the huge variety of local activities on both sides of the Zambezi. More importantly it’s a simple flight from the international hubs in Johannesburg and Cape Town and easy access into the main safari centres. There’s no shortage of accommodation options so it’s a holiday destination in its own right, but better still Victoria Falls is an obvious inclusion for any real safari in the region. Join us on the Zambezi River and beyond! Ask an expert We've helped first-timers and seasoned travellers in Africa since 1995. We can help you take advantage of mainstream options. Better still we'll show you how and where to step off well beaten paths for the more interesting journeys. Drop a note right here... Test the edge of fear…leap from no-man’s land. This is 111 metres of pure adrenaline rush! 5-4-3-2-1- jump right in here for the big bungee Helicopter rides Get a bird’s-eye view of Victoria Falls with a short helicopter flip or spot wildlife from the sky with a full game flight over the Batoka Gorge.

More about flips and flights here Fishing Go with a local pro angler. They won’t necessarily thread your worms but these boys spin some good yarns and you’ll make some great catches! Full details on our half and full day fishing trips in Victoria Falls and around here Zambezi Field Trip Spend a half-day learning about conservation efforts with the Victoria Falls Anti-Poaching Unit in the Zambezi National Park. Livingstone Discovers Victoria Falls, 1855 Livingstone Discovers Victoria Falls, 1855 Printer Friendly Version >>> Born in Scotland, David Livingstone arrived in Africa in 1840 at the age of 27 as a missionary and physician. He spent most of the remainder of his life on the continent, his exploits making him the most famous explorer of the century. An encounter with a lion in 1843 cost Livingstone the use of David Livingstone his left arm. Undeterred, Livingstone continued his exploration of the African interior, particularly the Zambezi River area in 1852-1856. It was during this expedition that he became the first European to witness the magnificence of Victoria Falls.

In 1866, Livingstone set out at the head of an expedition charged with the task of finding the headwaters of the Nile River. His lack of contact with the outside world over a period of four years raised concerns for his welfare and prompted the New York Herald to send Henry Stanley to find Livingstone. Stanley achieved his goal on November 10, 1871 approaching the explorer in an African village with the immortal words "Dr. Livingstone I presume" (see Stanley Finds Livingstone, 1871 ) Years in the wilderness took their toll however, and David Livingstone died in Africa in April 1873 at age sixty.

A Scene "Gazed Upon by Angels in Their Flight" In early November 1855, Livingstone traveled down the Zambezi River to see for himself the area the natives called "smoke that thunders." Approaching the spot in canoes, the party could see the columns of spray and hear the thunderous roar of water miles away from the falls: ADVERTISMENT "After twenty minutes' sail from Kalai we came in sight, for the first time, of the columns of vapor appropriately called 'smoke,' rising at a distance of five or six miles, exactly as when large tracts of grass are burned in Africa. Five columns now arose, and, bending in the direction of the wind, they seemed placed against a low ridge covered with trees; the tops of the columns at this distance appeared to mingle with the clouds. They were white below, and higher up became dark, so as to simulate smoke very closely. The whole scene was extremely beautiful; the banks and islands dotted over the river are adorned with sylvan vegetation of great variety of color and form�no one can imagine the beauty of the view from any thing witnessed in England.

It had never been seen before by European eyes; but scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight. The only want felt is that of mountains in the background. The falls are bounded on three sides by ridges 300 or 400 feet in height, which are covered with forest, with the red soil appearing among the trees. When about half a mile from the falls, I left the canoe by which we had come down thus far, and embarked in a lighter one, with men well acquainted with the rapids, who, by passing down the centre of the stream in the eddies and still places caused by many jutting rocks, brought me to an island situated in the middle of the river, and on the edge of the lip over which the water rolls. In coming hither there was danger of being swept down by the streams which rushed along on each side of the island; but the river was now low, and we sailed where it is totally impossible to go when the water is high.

But, though we had reached the island, and were within a few yards of the spot, a view from which would solve the whole problem, I believe that no one could perceive where the vast body of water went; it seemed to lose itself in the earth, the opposite lip of the fissure into which it disappeared being only 80 feet distant. At least I did not comprehend it until, creeping with awe to the verge, I peered down into a large rent which had been made from bank to bank of the broad Zambesi, and saw that a stream of a thousand yards broad leaped down a hundred feet, and then became suddenly compressed into a space of fifteen or twenty yards. The entire falls are simply a crack made in a hard basaltic rock from the right to the left bank of the Zambesi, and then prolonged from the left bank away through thirty or forty miles of hills.

If one imagines the Thames filled with low, tree-covered hills immediately beyond the tunnel, extending as far as Gravesend, the bed of black basaltic rock instead of London mud, and a fissure made therein from one end of the tunnel to the other down through the keystones of the arch, and prolonged from the left end of the tunnel through thirty miles of hills, the pathway being 100 feet down from the bed of the river instead of what it is, with the lips of the fissure from 80 to 100 feet apart, then fancy the Thames leaping bodily into the gulf, and forced there to change its direction, and flow from the right to the left bank, and then rush boiling and roaring through the hills, he may have some idea of what takes place at this, the most wonderful sight I had witnessed in Africa. In looking down into the fissure on the right of the island, one sees nothing but a dense white cloud, which, at the time we visited the spot, bad two bright rainbows on it.

From this cloud rushed up a great jet of vapor exactly like steam, and it mounted 200 or 300 feet high; there condensing, it changed its hue to that of dark smoke, and came back in a constant shower, which soon wetted us to the skin� An expedition artist's rendition of the falls On the left of the island we see the water at the bottom, a white rolling mass moving away to the prolongation of the fissure, which branches off near the left bank of the river� The walls of this gigantic crack are perpendicular, and composed of one homogeneous mass of rock. The edge of that side over which the water falls is worn off two or three feet, and pieces have fallen away, so as to give it some- what of a serrated appearance.

That over which the water does not fall is quite straight, except at the left corner, where a rent appears, and a piece seems inclined to fall off Upon the whole, it is nearly in the state in which it was left at the period of its formation�On the left side of the island we have a good view of the mass of water which causes one of the columns of vapor to ascend, as it leaps quite clear of the rock, and forms a thick unbroken fleece all the way to the bottom. Its whiteness gave the idea of snow, a sight I had not seen for many a day. As it broke into (if I may use the term) pieces of water, all rushing on in the same direction, each gave off several rays of foam, exactly as bits of steel, when burned in oxygen gas, give off rays of sparks.

The snow-white sheet seemed like myriads of small comets rushing on in one direction, each of which left behind its nucleus rays of foam." References: Livingstone, David, Missionary Travels and Researches In South Africa (1858) How To Cite This Article: "Livingstone Discovers Victoria Falls, 1855," EyeWitness to History, (2000). After his death, Livingstone's body was transported to England and buried in Westminster Abbey. His heart remained in Africa however, buried at the foot of the tree where he died in modern-day Zambia. Zambia Facts Northern Rhodesia gained independence in 1964 when it was renamed Zambia. In 1855 the famous missionary, David Livingstone, went down the Zambezi River and discovered Victoria Falls. Zambia has one of the highest diversities of birdlife in the world with over 743 species recorded to date. The national bird of Zambia is the Fish Eagle. The Staple dish in Zambia is a stiff porridge called nshima commonly made from maize or sorghum. Victoria Falls are 2km wide and the Zambezi River drops 100m into the gorge.

It is considered one of the seven natural wonders of the world. The seven natural wonders are: Victoria Falls, Zambia To the Victoria Falls - David Livingstone David Livingstone Discovery of the Victoria Falls Dr David Livingstone A Scottish medical missionary and explorer would be the first to make two important discoveries regarding the Zambizi river. Dr David Livingstone was the first to realise that the upper section of the river became the Zambezi known from the east coast, and the first to see the magnificent Victoria Falls, naming them after his British Queen and making them known to the world. Early Life David Livingstone was born on 19 March 1813 in Blantyre, Scotland, the second of seven children. His parents were strict Calvinists who believed in hard work and schooling. His father was a tea salesman, and to supplement the family income, the young Livingstone started working in the local cotton mills at 10, putting in 14-hour days, six days a week, for 16 years.

His father taught him to read and write, and in addition to evening classes provided by the milling company, Livingstone taught himself, including learning Latin at the age of 13 by propping a book on the spinning jenny while he worked. He studied the Bible and aimed to become a medical missionary, planning to go to China after training as a physician and minister. In 1834 he heard about an appeal by British and American churches for medical missionaries to go to China. He decided this should be his career whilst continuing to work part-time enrolled in Anderson's University, Glasgow to study medicine. Two years later, he had suspended his course and spent a year at the London Missionary Society in Chipping Ongar, Essex. He moved to London in 1840 to complete his medical studies and was ordained a missionary by the London Missionary Society, setting sale for Africa in December. In 1840, while continuing his medical studies in London, Livingstone met LMS missionary Robert Moffat, on leave from Kuruman, a missionary outpost in the Northern Cape, South Africa, north of the Orange River. Excited by Moffat's vision of expanding missionary work northwards, and influenced by abolitionist T.F.

Buxton's arguments that the African slave trade might be destroyed through the influence of "legitimate trade" and the spread of Christianity, Livingstone focused his ambitions on Southern Africa. His plans for China had been hampered by the outbreak of the Opium Wars and the LMS had suggested the West Indies instead, but Africa beckoned. Britain had abolished slavery in its dominions in 1833-4. The Arab slave trade of East Africa, however, was less well known in Britain than the earlier western Africa trade with the Americas. Loanda, on the west coast was once a major port for shipping slaves to Brazil but British naval patrols off the west coast of Africa had virtually put a stop to this trade. Livingstone would discover that the slavers trade networks extended deep into central Africa, and encounter the horrors and destruction it caused, and dedicate his life to exposing its evils to the world. 'While the Atlantic slave trade declined during Livingstone's life, traffic grew on the Indian Ocean as did the ivory trade. The two were of course related for slaves were often the porters used to carry ivory. The East African ivory trade saw a massive expansion in the nineteenth century.

The soft ivory, ideal for carving, was traded for beads, cloth, copper and brass and exported to Asia and Europe (and later America). Ivory had myriad ornamental uses - for inlay work, to make chessmen, cutlery handles, billiard balls, false teeth and piano keys.' 'Arab and African merchants dominated the slave and ivory trade from the east coast ports, notably Mombassa and Kilwa. From about 1840 the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba became increasingly important in this economy. These islands were under the control of the sultanate of Oman. By the time of Livingstone's arrival, trade routes for slaves and ivory extended deep into Africa.' David Livingstone the Missionary David Livingstone arrived in Cape Town on 14 March 1841. 'A long delay at the Cape gave Livingstone an insight into Missionary work which he never forgot.

He saw many Mission Stations crammed into a scantily populated area with the region beyond left without – he saw bickerings among the missionaries themselves and made no effort to hide his feelings, thus arousing some hostility towards himself.' [Clay, 1964)] He arrived at Kuruman, a mission founded by Scottish missionary Robert Moffat in Bechuanaland (now Botswana), in July. He made few converts during his time as a missionary, but quickly learnt native languages and focused on teaching agriculture and medicine. Kurman was the northern-most mission station in southern Africa, but Livingstone's thought were soon occupied by the unknown territories to the north, and "the smoke of a thousand villages where no missionary has ever been". In 1843, together with his wife and fellow missionary Roger Edwards, Livingstone established a mission station on the Kalahari margins at Mabotsa (near present-day Zeerust) amongst the Bakwena people, the chief of who, Sechele, would become Livingstone's only recorded religious convert. Against the wishes of the worried tribe who feared the wrath of their ancestors, Livingstone baptised Sechele.

Livingstone banned Chief Sechele, the tribe’s chief rainmaker, from invoking rain (and from polygamy) as a price for salvation, and as a result was blamed by his people for the droughts which followed. Sechele told Livingstone stories of a 'great water' in the desert, which caught Livingstone's imagination. In 1843 David Livingstone nearly lost his life. Encouraged by the local people to help them deal with a troublesome lion, his shot merely wounded it and it charged and leapt at him. Starting, and looking half round, I saw the lion just in the act of springing upon me ... Growling horribly close to my ear, he shook me as a terrier dog does a rat. His assistant shot the lion and saved his life. The lion fractured Livingstone's left arm "to splinters", and despite lack of anaesthesia and antibiotics, he recovered "with only the inconvenience of a false joint in my limb". However he could never again raise his weak left arm to the level of his shoulder.

David Livingstone attacked by lion When this event was illustrated by the artist Joseph Wolf for Livingstone's book, 'Missionary Travels', Livingstone wrote to the publisher describing it as 'abominable' and complaining that "[e]very one who knows what a lion is will die with laughing at it". Returning to Kuruman, Livingstone was helped to recuperate by Robert Moffat's eldest daughter, Mary Moffat. They were married in 1845. She was, he wrote to friends, "a matter-of-fact lady, a little thick black-haired girl, sturdy and all I want". Their honeymoon would be the 12-day journey by ox wagon back to Livingstone’s first mission at Mabotsa. Many biographers doubt his devotion to Mary and recount the expectation, current at the time, that every missionary needed a wife to look after him. Livingstone abandoned Mary for long periods during his subsequent explorations, often leaving her and his young family in abject poverty. She was later to travel with him some of his expeditions, until her death in what is now Mozambique, from malaria.

Livingstone was soon on the move with his new wife, returning to a second mission station he had established among the Bakwena at Tshongwane. After two difficult years drought forced them to move, and they established another mission amongst the Bamangwato people under chied Sekhomi on the banks of the Kolobeng River. At Kolobeng Livingstone built a home, erected a church, farmed, healed the sick and preached to Sechele’s people. Mary taught in the school they built, cooked and raised their first two children, Robert and Agnes. Livingstone's letters to Robert Moffat indicate the difficulties encountered and his reliance on his father-in-law. His requests were endless: "I may as well tell you some more of our wants... a trowel; large and small beads; a ladle and bullet mould; heifers if you can get them at any price; she goats; a musket if you have one to spare; vine cuttings; fruit stones for seed; pictures; the large vice mentioned." However he thrived on the challenges thrown at him. In a letter he criticised missionaries languishing "down in the Colony".

They should be "right up here, riding on the world’s backbone and snuffing like zebras the free, pure, delightful air of the great western desert!" David Livingstone the Explorer In June 1849 David Livingstone, together with a wealthy hunter, William Cotton Oswell, set off in search of a great inland lake of which they had heard rumours – despite of the concerns of his employers, the London Missionary Society. They nearly perished crossing the Kalahari Desert but on the 1st August 1849 they became the first Europeans to discover Lake Ngami. Oswell has happy to take a back seat, and Livingstone took full advantage of their discovery, showing early signs of the skilled self-promotion which would make him the most celebrated explorer of his time. He received a gold medal by the Royal Geographical Society in London for his efforts. After discovering the upper Zambezi with Oswell in 1851 Livingstone wrote to the London Missionary Society that he needed three years’ freedom from family responsibilities, and assuming that the Society would ensure their wellbeing, he trekked with his wife and children all the way to Cape Town, from where he sent them to England.

While in Cape Town, Livingstone took instruction in mapping and navigation from the Astronomer Royal, Thomas Maclear. They also discussed the possibility of a trip across the continent from the west coast to the east, and of great lakes rumoured to be located in the heart of the continent. Returning to Linyanti, Livingstone was now ready to start his first great expedition, lasting from 1852-1856. David Livingstone followed the Zambezi River to its mouth in the Indian Ocean, after initially crossing to the west coast, on the way becoming the first European to see Victoria Falls (see main section) and the first to cross the width of the African continent. After discovering the Falls Livingstone continued downstream, travelling on the north bank of the river. He met the Batoka people and was startled by their tradition of removing the front teeth at puberty, considering front teeth to be ugly. The reason the Batoka told him was that "they wished to look like oxen, and not like zebras".

Travelling through what is now the Kafue region in Zambia, and of the confluence of the Kafue River with the Zambezi, he recorded: "Hundreds of buffaloes and zebras grazed on the open spaces, and beneath the trees stood lordly elephants feeding majestically. The number of animals was quite astonishing. I wished I could have photographed a scene so seldom beheld, and which is destined, as guns increase, to pass away from Earth." Passing through another modern national park, the Lower Zambezi National Park, he reached the Luangwa river as it joined the Zambezi, and the present-day town of Feira, thanking God "for His great mercies in helping us thus far". Here he discovered the remains of a stone church, a broken bell with the letters IHS and a cross, but no date. Across the Luangwa at Zumbo were several ruined houses, and he concluded they belonged to Portuguese missionaries or slavers. Downriver from the confluence of the Luangwa River Livingstone and party encountered Chief Mpende and his people. The missionary roasted an ox and sent a hind leg to the chief.

Mpende responded with friendship, saying a Mozunga (Portuguese), his enemy, would never have done such a thing. "All the slaves of Tete are our children," he told Livingstone. "The Bazunga have made a town at our expense". The chief lent them canoes to cross to the south bank, cutting out a large bend in the river. Thus, by diverting from the coarse of the river Livingstone failed to appreciate one of its defining features - the Cahora Bassa rapids. He also nearly missed one of the Zambezi's major tributaries, the Shire, but records being told in Tete of a river which, it was said, drained a great lake, the 'Nyanja'. From Tete Livingstone journeyed on down the river past Senna to the Zambezi Delta, then northeast to Quelimane on the Indian Ocean coast, which he reached in May 1856. Leaving behind his Makololo companions, he caught a sailing ship to Mauritius, then hitched a ride home to England on the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Ship Company vessel Candia.

Livingstone returned to his family in England in 1856, receiving a hero's welcome. He actively promoted himself and his discoveries, attracting huge crowds wherever he spoke and being mobbed in public. By the mid-nineteenth century the development of industrial printing fed a growing market in newspapers, magazines, journals, books, bringing the exploits of explorers to a Victorian public hungry for adventure. Within months of his return he secured a deal to publish his journals with a leading geographical publisher, John Murray of London. In fact Livingstone's friend and supporter, Roderick Murchison, President of the Royal Geographical Society, had already set up the deal before Livingstone had even set foot back on British soil. In 1857 his book, Missionary Travels and Researches in Southern Africa, was finally published to an eager public and became an instant best-seller, along with his six month speaking tour. Livingstone dedicated it to Murchison and for "the kind interest he has always taken in the Author's pursuits and welfare". The first edition of 12,000 copies sold out immediately despite its price tag of one guinea.

To cope with the demand, the publisher Murray ordered the printing of another 8,000 copies of the 689 page volume. By the beginning of December this run too had sold out and Murray sent another 5,000 to the presses. "I think I would rather cross the African continent again than undertake to write about it. I intended on going to Africa to continue my studies; but... I entailed on myself, in addition to teaching, manual labor in building and other handicraft work, which made me generally as much exhausted and unfit for study in the evenings as ever I had been when a cotton-spinner. The want of time for self-improvement was the only source of regret that I experienced during my African career." [Livingstone, from preface to Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa (1857)] Dr David Livingstone (etching, from Missionary Travels) David Livingstone and slavery Livingstone soon resigned from the London Missionary Society, which wanted him to concentrate his energies on missionary work, and planned is own programme to bring salvation to the people of the Zambezi.

Livingstone had the support of Sir Roderick Murchison, President of the Royal Geographical Society, and the backing of the Royal Society, Britain's most prestigious scientific institution, of which he had been made fellow for his geographical discoveries, and used these contacts to promote his next expedition. Livingstone’s diaries reveal that he hoped to develop the Zambezi region in such a way that the Africans would engage in commercial agriculture and commerce, and reduce Britain's dependence on American cotton. He would use peaceful commerce and Christianity to defeat the exploitations of the slave trade. Livingstone's journey to Loanda in 1854 had also been brought to the attention of the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Clarendon, who wrote congratulating him. Just before he left Africa in 1856 Livingstone wrote to Clarendon extolling the virtues of the lower Zambezi region. By May 1857 the British government agreed to pay Livingstone a salary to lead what would become known as the 'Zambesi Expedition'.

Livingstone’s hope was to supply cotton seeds to the villagers of the Zambezi whose traditional farming patterns had been severely disrupted by decades of inter-tribal war and kidnapping to supply slaves to the east and west coasts. He wrote: On my return from Africa my chief efforts will be directed to making the river Zambezi an open pathway to the interior healthy highlands in order that a centre of civilisation and commerce will be formed. I shall visit all the chiefs along the banks and distribute cotton seeds – inviting the people to cultivate for our markets and I think if what I hope to begin is carried out that in the course of a dozen years Africa itself will have some material influence in diminishing the value of slave labour in America.

He also wrote of the Shire River and Lake Nyasa: It is highly probable that a small steamer on the Shire and Lake Nyasa would through the influence of the English name, prevent slave parties from passing the fords and, should our merchants not be obliged to pay dues for entering upon English discoveries for trade by a part of the Zambezi unused by the Portuguese, goods could be furnished to the native traders at Lake Nyasa as cheap as they can get them on the East coast which involved a month’s journey further... The capability of the country for the production of cotton cannot be exaggerated Determined to devote himself to what he called his 'spiritual calling', to abolish slavery, and to explore and develop the region, the expedition lasted from March 1858 until the middle of 1864. It was during this period, in 1862, that Livingstone’s wife, having just joined him from Scotland, died from complications related to malaria, causing David Livingstone to suffer a prolonged period of depression and inertia.

The expedition was plagued with difficulties from the start, not least as Livingstone had completely under estimated the scale of the rapids which blocked his navigation of the Zambezi, but also poor leadership resulted in arguments and a false accusations amongst his own men. In 1864 he sold his ship so he could return to England, where he was condemned as a failure. Livingstone publicised the horrors of the slave trade and secured private support for his third and final expedition to central Africa, searching for the source of the Nile. He left in 1866, at the age of 52 and it would last until his death in 1873. Later the same year the Anglo-Zanzibar Treaty prohibited the export of slaves from the mainland. Dr David Livingstone Death of David Livingstone In 1871, David Livingstone spent five months stranded in a small village of Nyangwe in the Congo. He had become increasingly reliant on the good will of Arab slave traders for supplies and assistance. On 15 July 1871, while still in Nyangwe, Livingstone witnessed a massacre of the local African population by Arab slave traders from Zanzibar.

Some 400 or 500 Africans, the majority of them women, died in a single day – a scale of murder and death unprecedented even in Livingstone’s experience. The massacre horrified Livingstone, leaving him too shattered to continue his mission to find the source of the Nile. He travelled 240 miles from Nyangwe – violently ill most of the way – back to Ujiji, an Arab settlement on the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika. His account of the massacre at Nyangwe, published in the posthumous Last Journals of 1874, would become well known and was an important source of public outrage in Britain, cementing his reputation as a champion in the fight against slavery. His lack of contact with the outside world over a period of four years raised concerns for his welfare, many believing he was dead, and prompted the New York Herald to send Henry Morton Stanley to on an unlikely mission to find Livingstone. Stanley achieved his goal on November 10, 1871 approaching the with the immortal words "Dr. Livingstone, I presume".

With Stanley's supplies Livingstone continued his explorations, but he was weak, worn out and suffering from dysentery: I have drunk stagnant water populated with insects, with mud rotten with the urine and dung of rhinoceroses and buffalos. Oh, I pray that the Almighty will grant me time to complete my work. Soon after writing these words, at Chitambo in what is now Zambia, on the morning of April 30, 1873, his two African assistants found him dead, still kneeling at the bedside in his camp, apparently praying when he died. They embalmed his body, according with his wishes they buried his heart under a baobab tree, and carried Livingstone and his papers on a dangerous 3000 kilometre trip to Bagamoyo, north of Dar es Salaam, on the east coast. They accompanied his body all the way on its 11 month journey via Zanzibar to Britain. He was buried on a day of national mourning in Westminster Abbey on April 18, 1874, nearly a year after his death.

After hearing of Livingstone's death, Florence Nightingale said: "God has taken away the greatest man of his generation....". David Livingstone himself was a curious combination of missionary, doctor, explorer, scientist and a pioneer in the abolition of the slavery trade. His motto, inscribed in the base of the statue to him at the Victoria Falls, was ‘Christianity, Commerce and Civilisation’. He believed the key to achieving these goals was the navigation of the Zambezi River. When he ‘discovered’ the Falls in 1855, David Livingstone was seeking to utilise the potential of the mighty Zambezi – he saw the great river as ‘God’s highway’ - the transport route by which he felt south-central Africa would become open to Christianity and commerce. He used a mirror and magnifying glass to win over suspicious chiefs and difficult situations, and applied his medical skills to saving lives. Livingstone was a perceptive and accurate observer, an ethnographer and naturalist and a prolific writer.

As the writer Don Pinnock remarks: ...he speculated on the food value of maneko fruit and the seeds of nux vomica; watched in amazement as mopane trees folded their leaves, presenting the smallest surface to harsh sunlight; experimented with the navigation abilities of soldier ants, concluding (quite rightly) that they tracked by scent; watched ‘plasterer’ wasps stunning creatures in which to lay their eggs; filled pages of his diary on the environmental value of termites; noted the diets of oxpeckers; turned “with a feeling of sickness unrelieved by the recollection that the ivory was mine” when his men killed an elephant; and followed honey guides to see if they really led to honey (they did – 114 times to hives and only once to an elephant). Take for example Livingstone's notes on the Giant Bullfrog: "These enormous frogs, which, when cooked, look like chickens, are supposed by the natives to fall down from thunder-clouds, because after a heavy thunder-shower the pools, which are filled and retain water a few days, become instantly alive with this loud-croaking, pugnacious game.

This phenomenon takes place in the driest parts of the desert, and in places where, to an ordinary observer, there is not a sign of life. Having been once benighted in a district of the Kalahari where there was no prospect of getting water for our cattle for a day or two, I was surprised to hear in the fine still evening the croaking of frogs. Walking out until I was certain that the musicians were between me and our fire, I found that they could be merry on nothing else but a prospect of rain. From the Bushmen I afterward learned that the matlametlo makes a hole at the root of certain bushes, and there ensconces himself during the months of drought. As he seldom emerges, a large variety of spider takes advantage of the hole, and makes its web across the orifice. He is thus furnished with a window and screen gratis; and no one but a Bushman would think of searching beneath a spider’s web for a frog.

They completely eluded my search on the occasion referred to; and as they rush forth into the hollows filled by the thunder-shower when the rain is actually falling, and the Bechuanas are cowering under their skin garments, the sudden chorus struck up simultaneously from all sides seems to indicate a descent from the clouds. Livingstone also had a dry sense of humour: "It is remarkable that attempts have not been made to any extent to domesticate some of the noble and useful creatures of Africa in England... there is a splendid esculent frog nearly as large as a chicken, it would no doubt tend to perpetuate the present alliance if we made a gift of that to France." His journals, letters and published narratives also provide observations on African diseases such as typhoid, dysentery and malaria. More than 30 years before the link between mosquitoes and malaria was established, Livingstone suggested their association: "Myriads of mosquitoes showed, as probably they always do, the presence of malaria". He was also one of the first to administer quinine in a dosage that is now considered effective. It is estimated he walked or travelled over some 48,000 kilometres through unknown and unmapped central Africa.

In 2001, vandals destroyed metal plaques on Livingstone’s statue in the Victoria Falls Park, Zimbabwe, which proclaimed the Scottish missionary as the discoverer of the waterfall. Victoria Falls History Pre-colonial History D iggings in Archaeological sites found around the falls area have yielded Homo habilis stone artifacts that date back to some 3 million years ago. Middle Stone Age tools (50 000 years) and Late Stone Age weapons and digging tools (10 000 and 2000 years) have also been found. Khoisan hunter gatherers using iron tools displaced these Stone Age people and they in turn were displaced by the Southern Tonga people now known as the Batoka tribe, these people still live in the area today. Iron-using Khoisan hunter-gatherers displaced these Stone Age people and in turn were displaced by Bantu tribes such as the southern Tonga people known as the Batoka/Tokalea, who called the falls Shungu na mutitima.

The Matabele, later arrivals, named them aManz’ aThunqayo, and the Batswana and Makololo (whose language is used by the Lozi people) call them Mosi-o-Tunya. All these names mean essentially “the smoke that thunders”. Later many more tribes arrived these included the Matabele and the Makololo tribe, also still present in the area. It was members of this Makololo tribe that escorted David Livingstone the first person to spread the word of the existence of the falls to the Western World on the 17th November 1855. However, Nicolas de Fer’s 1715 map of southern Africa has the fall clearly marked in the correct position. It also has dotted lines denoting trade routes that David Livingstone followed 140 years later. There also exists a map from c.1750 drawn by Jacques Nicolas Bellin for Abbé Antoine François Prevost d’Exiles marks the falls as “cataractes” and notes a settlement to the north of the Zambezi as being friendly with the Portuguese at the time.

The falls were well known to local tribes, and Voortrekker hunters may have known of them, as may the Arabs under a name equivalent to “the end of the world”. Livingstone names the Falls During his 1852–56 journey from the upper Zambezi to the mouth of the river, Livingstone had been told about the falls before he reached them from upriver on 17 November 1855 and was paddled across to a small island that now bears the name Livingstone Island on the Zambian half of the river. Livingstone had previously been impressed by the Ngonye Falls further upstream, but was astounded with the new find, and gave them their English name in honour of Queen Victoria. He spent the night on Kalai Island a few kilometers upstream of the Falls, having come down river by foot, and the next morning he was paddled out by the local villagers in a small canoe to approach the thundering smoke. He landed on the biggest island on the lip of the falls, now called Livingstone Island and from there obtained his first view of the Falls.

” Creeping with awe to the verge, I peered down into a large rent which had been made from bank to bank of the broad Zambezi, and saw that a stream of a thousand yards broad leaped down a hundred feet and then became suddenly compressed into a space of fifteen to twenty yards….the most wonderful sight I had witnessed in Africa.” Of the surrounding area he wrote: “No one can imagine the beauty of the view from anything witnessed in England. It had never been seen before by European eyes, but scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight” (Livingstone 1857). He sent word of the Falls to England deciding he would name them after Queen Victoria. Locals still refer to the Falls as Mosi Oa Tunya and the area continues to be revered as a sacred site among the local tribes. David Livingstone was obviously not the first person to see the Victoria Falls, although he is always credited as having discovered it. Many locals feel they should be rebranded Mosi Oa Tunya. In 1860, Livingstone returned to the area and made a detailed study of the falls with John Kirk.

Other early European visitors included Portuguese explorer Serpa Pinto, Czech explorer Emil Holub, who made the first detailed plan of the falls and its surroundings in 1875 (published in 1880),[17] and British artist Thomas Baines, who executed some of the earliest paintings of the falls. Colonial Settlement The falls were seldom visited by other Europeans, until the area was opened up by the building of the railway in 1905. European settlement of the Victoria Falls area started around 1900 in response to the desire of Cecil Rhodes’ British South Africa Company for mineral rights and imperial rule north of the Zambezi, and the exploitation of other natural resources such as timber forests north-east of the falls, and ivory and animal skins. Before 1905, the river was crossed above the falls at the Old Drift, by dugout canoe or a barge towed across with a steel cable. Rhodes’ vision of a Cape-Cairo railway drove plans for the first bridge across the Zambezi and he insisted it be built where the spray from the falls would fall on passing trains, so the site at the Second Gorge was chosen. See the page on Victoria Falls Bridge.

The falls became an increasingly popular attraction during British colonial rule of Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), with the town of Victoria Falls on the Southern side, becoming the main tourist centre. By the end of the 1990’s almost 300,000 people were visiting the falls annually, and this was expected to rise to over a million in the next decade. The two countries permit tourists to make day trips from each side and visas can be obtained at the border posts. Costs vary from US$45-US$80 (as of 01 December 2013). Visitors with single entry visas will need to purchase a visa each time they cross the border. Regular changes in visa regulations mean visitors should check the rules before crossing the border. World Heritage Site In 1989 Victoria Falls was inscribed as a World Heritage Site. What makes the concept of World Heritage exceptional is its universal application. World Heritage sites belong to all the peoples of the world, irrespective of the territory on which they are located.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) seek to encourage the identification, protection and preservation of cultural and natural heritage around the world considered to be of outstanding value to humanity. This is embodied in an international treaty called the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, adopted by UNESCO in 1972. UNESCO World Heritage Site. The falls also enjoyed the position of one of the seven natural wonders of the world for many years. (this is voted on and changed from time to time). A visit to this spectacular and breathtaking natural phenomenon – the Smoke that Thunders, is truly a must see on any visit to Africa. And with the many varied activities to do in the surrounding area, it makes the trip all the more worthwhile.

Question: Which explorer discovered the Victoria falls on the River Zambezi?
Answer: David Livingstone